


Precinct 76

by FortinbrasFTW



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Police, Multi, asexual dva, brooklyn 99 au, jack's the holt to DVa's jake, mentions of ana/jack/gabriel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-07
Updated: 2016-08-07
Packaged: 2018-08-07 07:08:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7705264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FortinbrasFTW/pseuds/FortinbrasFTW
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack Morrison has been doing his best to run the 76th Precinct, but upstart young detective Hana Song, a murdered journalist, and the sudden reappearance of someone he'd tried to forgot long ago throws his world into sudden chaos.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Precinct 76

Jack Morrison is losing his grip on a good day.

It had started out well enough. There had been just enough granola left in the apartment to make a decent breakfast. It was the good kind too, with the dried cherries and just enough maple that it tasted great without leaving guilt hanging around for the rest of the day. His milk had still been three days from expiration and he might actually end up finishing this gallon without having to throw most of it down the sink. One of his four forks had been clean, and one of the two bowls, which was just about as close to a miracle as he was ever going to get.

Bastion, the station’s rescue German Shepherd, hadn’t even whined at the door until it was a decent hour to head out, and when they did head around the block towards the precinct the dog had done a shit on the little patch of dirt in front of the laundromat just like a proper animal instead of dropping one directly in the middle of the sidewalk as usual. He hadn’t been ready to handle that moral conflict this morning, the look that people who walked around the hunched over dog dropping a load right in the middle of the bustling walk-way gave him, like he’d trained a child to swear in public. The worst part was always the damn overwhelmingly self-conscious way the dog stared at him while it did it, leaving him torn between being emotionally supportive and holding the horrible eye-contact, or just looking away to save himself and feeling bad about it. But not today. Today they’d made it right to the precinct without incident. 

Things at the precinct started good enough as well. Miraculously he only had an hour’s worth of paperwork. It was the easy kind too, the monotonous check the box, sign his name over the neatly printed “Captain Jack Morrison” lettering, pop a date on the opposite side of the paper, seal the envelope, call it a job well done.

When he looked up from his desk at 9AM as he always did, just to check, everyone was bustling about the station and Detective Song was actually _at_ her desk. It was the first time he’s seen her before 9:30 that entire week. He couldn’t help smiling to himself. She was getting better. Even if she still had her feet up, was wearing a comic book t-shirt and popping her bubble gum loud enough to hear it through the glass as she dove elbow-deep into a bag of Doritos before noon, she was getting better. She was there, and that was something, wasn’t it? Of course Bastion was already asleep next to her chair. Traitor. He always gave the most irresponsible detectives attention. Likely because they were the only ones undisciplined enough to drop him snack-food; Song even let him clean the crumbs off her Dorito-coated fingers. 

During the morning briefing they were able to report a small uptick in their numbers, and of course each detective was ready to take personal responsibility for. Zaryanova insisted it was the arson suspect she tackled ten blocks down that topped the charts, while Oxton claimed her numbers were _consistently_ better, and Amari quietly pointed out the three robberies she’d tagged just the day before. The arguments jostled back and forth, and old Sergeant Wilhelm was proud enough that he just beamed, until Jack made them shut up and listen to the rest of the review. 

Jack’s favorite falafel stand didn’t have a line at lunch. The maintenance staff actually showed up to deal with the exploding urinal in the second floor men’s room. None of the drunks in the holding cell had decided to piss on the walls just for the hell of it. It had been a pretty good day, until three in the afternoon when Reinhardt’s characteristically gentle knock sounded at his office door.

“It’s open,” Jack calls.

Wilhelm pushes it in and closes it softly behind him. Like a lot of big guys, he always seemed particularly careful with his strength. Sergeant Wilhelm was strong, and big in almost every way: big man, big beard, big laugh. But he isn’t laughing now, he’s eyeing Jack in that nervous way he usually does where there’s something on his mind that he doesn’t want to have to tell him.

Jack adjusts in his old uncomfortable desk chair. “Something up?”

Sergeant Wilhelm straightens his back, suspenders flexing over his shoulders. He’s big enough to make Jack’s little office feel filled right to the edges. 

“Good thing they finally fixed that bathroom, huh?” Wilhelm smiles weakly. “Felt like Russian roulette any time you take a piss.”

Jack sighs, looking up at him properly. “Reinhardt. What is it?”

The Sergeant deflates. “There’s a, uh… there’s a problem.”

Jack groans. “If that goddamn raccoon is back in the kitchen I swear I _am_ shooting it. Zhou is not stopping me.”

“No, no, no—” Reinhardt holds out both hands, then pulls them back again running one through his long hair with a sigh. “It’s a murder. Four blocks down. Just got the call.”

“Oh no.” Jack looks back at him dryly. “Have they called the police?”

Reinhardt smiles woodenly. “It’s… higher profile. Splashy. You know, just the type of thing—“

“—Just the type of thing to ruin my good day?”

“Right,” Reinhardt says. “Just thought I’d, you know heads up, all that.”

“Yeah,” Jack leans back as the chair creaks. He gazes up at the ceiling, all the familiar water-stains where the panels criss-cross together looking back at him dumbly. Well, the whole day can’t be granola with cherries, can it? Not when it’s one of his days.

Jack stands too fast, feeling his back protest. He resists the urge to flatten a hand against it. “The press there yet?”

“Well,” Reinhardt’s got his hand on his beard again. “That’s the thing…”

Fifteen minutes later Jack heads out of his office, swinging the door shut behind him. The sound as it slams jerks every officer at a desk into sudden attention. Bastion pricks his ears up, looking at Jack with those big soulful eyes.

The sounds of the precinct continue as normal, chatting voices on phones, shuffling steps towards the back as criminals and officers move to and from the holding cells or the front desk. All around it’s not a bad office, one of the better precincts he’s had honestly. The whole north side of the open office space is glass, old tall windows in their old brick building, above their old metal radiators that don’t turn off until June. The floor is tiled in well-worn squares of black and white and blue, florescent lights hang from the ceiling, dangling down in their metal cages. 

Jack can feel eyes of the detectives watching him and pretending not to. There’s Dos Santos at his desk, chatting into a cell phone with papers spread out haphazardly, high-end headphones perched on the edge of his computer. He glances at Jack with the phone against his ear, smiling nervously. Amari doesn’t even pretend she isn’t paying attention to him, watching with narrow eyes as she taps a pen against the edge of her lamp, small espresso cup without a lipstick stain by her elbow the only imperfection on her desk. Oxton is glancing at him every now and again with barely constrained curiosity. She’s leaning against the wall by Zaryanova, likely arguing about who gets to drive their squad car again. There’s an empty desk by the window with a Texas style ranger’s hat on it.

“Where’s Mcree?” Jack asks.

“Out,” Reinhardt says.

“ _Out_?” Jack repeats, turning on him. 

Reinhardt starts to smile. “Contesting another parking ticket, Sir.”

Jack snorts. He can’t help letting himself smile, even if it’s barely a twitch.

He turns back to the room. The attention is still there, tentative, eager. Attention from everyone. No… almost everyone.

Hana Song is still leaned back at her desk, sneakered feet up in front of her. She’s shooting paper-clips across the room with a rubber-band into the trashcan five meters away. She doesn’t miss a single one.

“Song!” Jack yells suddenly. He’s gratified to see she startles before wafting back into her usual apathy.

“Captain?” she asks. 

“You’re with me. Let’s go.”

“Sir, yes Sir!” She gives him a cock-eyed smile and wafts to her feet. She pulls on her shoulder holster and thin black bomber jacket on top of it. She grabs the Doritos off the desk.

Jack eyes them. “If you think you’re eating those in my car, you’ve got another thing coming, kid.” 

Hana rolls her eyes, dropping them back down. She looks down at Bastion where he’s watching her by the desk. She points to her eyes with two fingers and then down at him with a firm warning expression.

“Move it, Song,” Jack commands, “don’t got all day.”

“What’s the rush, Boss?” she asks, oozing across the room with a smirk. “Someone die?”

Dos Santos smothers a laugh at his desk as Song’s smile grows with the approval. Reinhardt gives Dos Santos a friendly smack on the back of the head.

Jack straightens. “If this is a hassle maybe you’d enjoy your afternoon more on street patrol, Song.”

The smile vanishes. “No, Sir.”

“Then cut the cute shit and move it before I decide I don’t have time for your attitude.”

Song’s jaw tightens. “Yes, Sir.”

Amari smiles to herself at her desk as she turns back to her paperwork. Oxton frowns, watching them as they head for the door.

Jack turns back just before heading out. He speaks low enough that only Reinhardt can hear. “If anyone starts calling, tell them—“

“No comment,” Reinhardt smiles back.

“Yeah,” Jack nods, “right.”

 

The traffic is hell, as usual. The bright yellow of cabs and the tapestry of other colors backs up three blocks as a semi tries to make a u-turn down by 4th Ave. And boy, the day just keeps getting better. 

Jack eyes the traffic running a hand down his unshaven face. “We’re walking.”

Song recoils noticeable. “… Seriously?”

Jack looks down at her. The bored young face stares back at him unperturbed from under her bangs, brown hair pulled back into a neat bouncy ponytail. Some ridiculous cartoon he’s damn glad he doesn’t know the name of stares back at him from her shirt.

“It’s four blocks.”

“It’s like… a hundred degrees out here.”

“We’re walking.” Jack turns South, heading towards Bleecker St. He can almost hear Song rolling her eyes but the sneakers step after him anyways. 

Jack heads over a cross street, as the city blares around them. He ignores the all too familiar smell of New York summer that wafts up from a subway grate as they move over it, a smell that could be classified as boiling rat urine and human defeat. 

“Hey, Boss?” Song asks.

“What?”

“Don’t you get hot in that jacket?”

“No,” Jack lies.

“I mean, it’s cool and all that, real classic, excellent James Howlett vibes, you know?”

“I absolutely don’t know.”

“Right, yeah, but you know, that leather must get _pretty_ hot.”

“I said it’s fine.”

“You know,” she continues, apparently not hearing him, “you could get a hip-holster, then you wouldn’t have to wear a jacket when it’s hotter than Krypton. I mean I know the shoulder holster is super _Dirty Harry_ but you could pull off a _The Good the Bad and the Ugly_ , which is still baller. I mean less cops and more cowboy hookers, but even so—”

“Detective,” Jack says coming to a sudden stop.

Song just manages not to crash right into him. “Uh, yeah?”

“Gum.”

She narrows her eyes. “You… want some gum?”

“Spit it. Now.”

“Ah, come on, Boss!”

“This is a murder scene. We’re not going in there with my Detective snapping bubblegum for Christ’s sake.”

Her eyes suddenly get a little bigger. “A murder?” 

“That’s right.”

“Seriously?”

“No. I’m joking. This is my joking face.”

Song swallows. “This is… I mean you know I haven’t actually, uh, like, _had_ a murder case yet, right? I mean I’ve been _on_ murder cases and everything but I haven’t, you know, _had_ one. As a detective. I mean. But of course you’d know that. Right?”

Jack’s phone suddenly buzzes in his pocket. He reaches down and pulls it out. “NYPD HQ” stares back at him. He stares back at it for a moment before clicking it off and putting it back in his pocket. 

“I do know that,” he answers her. “You’re taking one today.”

She shifts her posture, tugging at a lip with her teeth.

Jack raises a brow. “Unless… you’re not ready?”

Her eyes narrow instantly. “Let’s go.”

Jack leans back. “Gum?”

“Gone.”

Jack’s expression twitches uncomfortably. “You… swallowed it?”

“Yeah,” she grins at his obvious disgust. “What? Wanna call the Magic School Bus? Organize an extraction?”

“Alright, Detective, let’s go.”

The building looks just like any other on the block as they walk up to it. There’s a simple but elegantly old sign by the front door that reads “The New York Chronicle”. Everything seems perfectly calm, pedestrians walk past as if nothing has changed, there’s a younger kid with a dog leaning against the brick siding checking his phone. A courier parks their bike along the rail and heads towards the door.

“Hey,” Jack catches the guy on his way up the steps to the wide front entrance. Behind the glass doors he can see nervous faces peering out towards the steps.

The courier stops, looking back at him confused.

“Check back in a few hours, alright? Maybe a day,” Jack opens his jacket, flashing his badge. 

The courier glances at the badge then back to the building with a swallow. “A… a day? I’m gonna get chewed out, man.” 

“Not my problem. Man.” Jack answers.

“We’ll bring it in for you,” Song suddenly chimes.

Jack turns sharply.

She shrugs. “We’re going in there anyway. Why not, right?”

The courier looks at Jack nervously. Jack grumbles but finally gives him a short nod.

Song pulls the package from his hands without waiting. “Got it. No worries!”

The courier doesn’t exactly look like he believes her but he heads off anyways. Jack pushes open the doors and heads inside.

The tension hits as soon as the doors swing shut behind them. Funny how strong it can be, the energy in spaces like this when the everyday gets shattered apart and this strange alternate reality, a reality where the average has no place anymore, seeps in to take it’s place. It leaves people stuck, uncertain, and more than a little lost, gazing at it, not sure whether to try and push it away or welcome it in.

Jack reaches inside his jacket as he gets to the reception desk. Three concerned faces behind black-rimmed glasses stare back at him. He holds the badge up to them and they seem to release a collective sigh of relief.

“Which floor?” Jack asks.

“Seventh,” the younger girl answers shakily. 

Jack nods, turning the the elevator. There’s no one in it when it arrives. The building still seems stunned into immobility. That won’t last long. Song taps her toes as the little light above the door tracks one floor at a time until it finally dings its arrival. Jack leads the way out. A tall woman with long red hair and a stressed expression meets them as soon as they turn down the main corridor. 

“Jack Morrison?”

Jack stops. Of course she knows who he is. “You are?”

“Miranda Pollock,” she answers. She seems rattled. She seems like a rattled woman who isn’t used to being rattled and doesn’t like the way it perches on her shoulders.

“You’re in charge?” Jack asks.

“That’s right.”

“This is Detective Song,” Jack says. Hana gives a wave. The woman hardly seems to notice her. She hardly seems to notice anything.

“Would you… I mean, I assume you’re here to…“

“No one’s touched anything?”

“No,” she says quietly. “We, it… it must have happened this afternoon. When we found… well, we just— I shut the door, and called the police when they told me.”

Jack nods. He wonders how quickly she really did call the police. 

He looks at her again then down the hall and she gets the hint, leading the way on nude colored pumps. They pass a few conferences rooms, glassy offices, messy desks clustered closely together, covered in sheets of paper, photos, pinned up news clippings. Faces watch them all the way. They don’t seem to have too much else to do but stare.

Jack frowns. “Everyone’s still here.”

“I told them not to leave,” Miss. Pollock says. “I cut the internet just in case. I didn’t want things to… I wanted to keep a handle on the situation. We all have to acknowledge how we’ll move forward. There’s respect to be considered here.”

Jack resists the urge to laugh. Funny how delicate the press could be when it was suddenly _their own_ problem ready to splash across front pages. If this had been any other murder, this high a profile, this type of scene, the block would be swarming with reporters by now, likely at least three of Miss. Pollock’s own people, and she’d be on the other end of a cell phone telling them not to come back until they had something juicy to tack on a front page.

“Jeez,” Song mutters under her breath at Jack’s back, gazing around at the looky-loos, “you’d think no one’s seen a murder scene before.”

Jack gives her a stern look. 

“We’re here,” Miss. Pollock says, stopping in front of a closed office door. She takes a key out of her pocket and unlocks the door with nude-painted fingernails and relatively steady hands. 

She steps back as Jack steps forward. He wraps a hand around the handle and turns it sharply.

“Um,” Miss. Pollock starts, “Captain, could I just ask—“

Jack looks at her.

“Could you, I mean, could we, keep this, well… discreet might not be the right word.”

“No,” Jack agrees. “It’s not.”

He opens the door and heads in, closing it behind Song and sealing Miss. Pollock out.

Rays of sunshine pool into the office, slanting between a shade drawn across south-facing windows. It seems quiet, peaceful even. There’s a worn leather couch on one side, a well-used desk on the other. Framed headline stories cover the walls, at least a dozen of them. Jack scans the space. The desk looks as it should, as if someone had just been working there, all except the rather conspicuous lack of a computer. The chair is pushed back. He looks down. There’s a red stain peering out from behind the desk. There’s a hand on top of it, fingers gently curled inwards. 

“Can I, you know…” Song starts behind him expectantly, “…detect?”

Jack takes a few steps further inside, peering around the desk. It’s not exactly what he expected. It feels… off, somehow.

“Try not to touch anything. Don’t move around too much,” Jack says.

“Yeeeah, about that,” Song starts, taking her own steps around the back of the desk and peering down at what there is to see. “Are we _not_ calling forensics, orrr…?”

“I wanted to take a look first. See what we were in for. Forensics means attention. There’s going to be a lot of that.”

“Why? Was he, uh, famous or something?”

Jack looks at her. “You haven’t heard of Tekhartha Mondatta?”

“Nope,” Song says. She looks around the room, finally gesturing to the walls. “He write those?”

“Yes.”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t really read a lot of the news. I’m mostly on Twitter.”

Jack rolls his eyes. 

“But a reporter killing, that’s kinda interesting, huh?” Song says. “Big stuff, right?”

Jack listens to space. Something about the sound feels different. “Yeah. You could say that.”

“That’s mobster stuff, right? Big news stories on the wall, bet he was getting ‘too close to the truth’! Does that stuff really happen? Or did he just slip and fall off his chair?” Song tilts her head, eyeing the body more carefully. “You probably don’t get shot through the head falling off a chair, huh?” She takes a step back. “There’s the exit.” There’s a neat hole in the plaster wall behind them.

Jack listens hard. It’s the street. He can hear the street. He takes two careful steps to the window and pulls back the curtain. A crisp hole stares back at him. “There’s the entrance.”

“Huh,” Song sticks out a lip. “That’s funny.”

“What is?” Jack asks.

“Well, if the bullet came in there, just wondering, who closed the curtains…”

“It’s a good question.”

“ _And_ who took the computer.”

“That’s another one.”

Hana looks at him. “So?”

Jack looks back. “So what?”

“So: what now?”

Jack’s quiet for a moment. He raises a hand to the glass, running a finger against the clean hole where the sounds of the city bleed through. He pulls his hand back, turning to face her again. “What do you think, Detective?”

“I think we should get forensics.”

“Good. Do it. I’m heading back.”

“Oh,” she looks suddenly unsure, “should, I uh—“

“Stay here,” Jack says. “It’s your crime scene. Remember?”

She actually smiles, a genuine smile. “Yeah. That’s right.”

“You got it?”

“Yeah, Boss. I got it.”

 

Jack’s phone is ringing in his pocket again when he gets to the precinct. He was almost run down on the way in by the forensics team rushing to get to the scene, followed closely by Dos Santos who looked _far_ too eager to be heading off to a murder.

Jack fumbles his phone back into his hand. NYPD HQ. Again. He puts the phone back in his pocket.

“Was it overrun?” Reinhardt calls as Jack pushes back into the offices.

“No,” Jack answers. “Damn press. All too ready to cover up their own messes.”

“You think it’s their mess?” Reinhardt asks.

“I don’t know yet.” Jack steps to the front of the precinct, turning to face the office. “Alright! Listen up!” 

His voice instantly carries across the space. Heads snap up at desks, voices quieting.

“As you’ve probably already heard, we’ve got a noisy one,” Jack says. “It’s going to be high press, high pressure, so I want to be sure everyone is ready. Our top priority is finding the truth and those responsible. We’re not here to save corporate face. And we’re not here to blow an opportunity with leaks to jackals with the blogs, got it.”

“Sir,” Zaryanova’s voice suddenly calls, firm and confident. “Who was it?”

Jack takes a breath. “Mondatta. Tekhartha Mondatta.”

Lena’s hand goes to her mouth. The precinct somehow feels even more quiet. 

“Detective Song is taking the lead on this one, with _all_ of our assistance,” Jack says. “Now, New York doesn’t stop for one man. There’s work to get done. Get after it.”

He turns away as the whispers and hurried voices burst to life across the floor. He heads for his office door, shrugging the leather jacket off his shoulders. He stops half way back.

“Where the hell have you been?”

Jesse glances up at him with a lazy smile. “This city, man, cops will ticket anything.”

“Next time you’re out on hours it’s coming out of your pay,” Jack grumbles, turning back towards his office.

“You sent the new kid?” Jesse’s voice suddenly calls after him.

Jack stops, turning back. “Problem?”

Jesse shrugs instantly, leaning back too far in his chair. “No Sir, didn’t say that.”

“You got anything to say?”

“No Sir, not much,” Jesse smiles, “just lemme’ know what you need.”

Jack narrows his eyes. “Records. Start pulling them. I want every article.”

“Aw come on now, Jack, it was just a parking ticket!”

Jack ignores him, following Reinhardt back to his desk. Reinhardt pick up a hefty stack of papers and hands them over.

“They’re going to be here soon, you know, the rest of the press. What are we going to tell them?”

“Nothing,” Jack says instantly. 

“You know, the Head Office called for you,” he says cautiously. “Do you think—?”

“—That they know? Yeah. I do.”

“Shouldn’t you…” Reinhardt clears his throat, uncomfortable this close to their rank differences.

“I’ll talk to her,” Jack sighs. “Eventually. I just… not yet.”

“She’s going to call me if she can’t reach out,” Reinhardt notes uneasily. Then, more to himself, “She always does…”

“Pick up if you want. Don’t if you don’t,” Jack says. He glances down at Reinhardt’s desk. There’s a picture of his wife in a nineties bathing suit, holding up both of their children on some beach somewhere warm and soft and bright. There’s a few crumpled power-bar wrappers. There’s a child’s drawing with “GRANDPA” in mostly backwards letters of various sizes across the bottom. There’s an old photo leaned against the computer, an old photo with worn edges and faces that used to be familiar smiling out at the world, daring it to tell them no. Jack looks away.

“We’re going to need a statement,” Jack says.

Reinhardt seems relieved. “I’ll call the PR kid, get him to draft something you can review.”

“I want to get back to the scene. Tonight.”

“You might want to wait,” Reinhardt says softly. He glances around at the anxious, excited faces twittering around their desks. “Might be a bit distracting if they see everyone’s all wrapped up in this.”

“Yeah,” Jack admits. “Yeah, alright.”

The rest of the day doesn’t go much better. He supposes there was never much of a chance that it would. Jack spends the next four hours drifting around the station, trying to ensure what’s already being called “The Mondatta Case” doesn’t consume all the attention of every officer on duty. Despite the effort he seems to have as hard of a time as anyone else keeping it out of his head. 

Song isn’t wrong. It is like something out of movies. He’s old enough and been at this job long enough to know not to trust that feeling. Things are always simpler than you want them to be. In the end it just comes down to the fact that people are people. The hard part is realizing just what it means to really be messy, ugly, terrified, good old fashion people. Murder’s just greed nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine times out of a thousand. Greed of one shade or another. Murder isn’t some enigmatic shadowy plot with shades of grey and side-alleys of suspicions, ripe with red-herrings. That was the stuff that belonged in movies. In real life, the simple answer was the right one, it was just a matter of accepting that simplicity.

Jack’s phone rings five more times. He ignores each one. The crowd outside the station grows larger each hour. Soon the Detectives are coming in the back entrance to avoid it. The sound of clamoring press shoves into the station with the New York summer heat each time the front door swings open. Reinhardt hands him the press brief before it’s dark. He makes tiny stern notes with a blue pen for the next hour before handing it back to him.

Hana’s initial notes come through his inbox half an hour later. He reads the notes carefully three times before diving into the stack of papers Reinhardt’s left behind. He’s deep in regulatory language when his phone rings again.

He’s about to shove the damn thing into a desk drawer when he catches the caller ID. Song, Hana.

He picks it up, blinking out at the rest of the office to focus. He runs a heavy hand down his face. “Yeah?”

“Captain?” 

God it must be late, the place is almost empty out there, when did it get so late?

“Yeah,” he repeats. “How’s it going? You still there?”

“Yeah, we’re still here. But, um, there’s uh, bit of a… problem.”

Jack blinks, trying to focus. He hadn’t realized how tired he’d gotten. When’s the last time he ate? The cherry granola feels like it was years ago. “What is it?”

“There’s suits here.”

“What?”

“Suits. They’re telling us they’re taking over the scene.”

Jack stands up too fast. He catches himself on the desk before he topples over. “FBI?”

“Well that’s what the jackets say,” Hana answers. “So either they’re real convincing X-Files cosplay, or—“

Jack swears. “I’ll be down in five minutes.”

He hurries out of the office, the last few faces at desks blearily watching him as he goes. Bastion perks up his ears. He gives a tiny whine.

“I’ll be back,” Jack mutters to him, pulling on his jacket.

He hurries down the dark streets, the heat still hanging heavy and oppressive all across the city. Cars rush by, voices calling, the city teeming on as usual. He makes it to right corner. There’s three news trucks pulled up on the curb. The first reporter catches sight of him almost instantly

“CAPTAIN MORRISON! CAN YOU TELL US WHAT’S HAPPENING INSIDE?”

The other’s jump at their chance.

“IS IT TRUE THAT MR. MONDATTA WAS ASSASSINATED _IN_ HIS OFFICE?”

“IS ANYONE AT THE CHRONICLE A SUSPECT?”

“WAS THE INTERNET FOR THE BUILDING DELIBERATELY DISCONNECTED?”

“CAPTAIN MORRISON—!“

Jack pushes his way through, officers pull the doors open for him and shut them again, sealing out the flashing lights and calling voices. 

The elevator’s crowded with forensics uniforms and nerve-wracked employees. Jack doesn’t bother waiting. He hustles up the stairs as fast as he can, regretting that decision by the fifth floor. His knee is starting to ache by the sixth but he makes it to the seventh, just out of breath enough to be ashamed of it.

He turned the corridors of the space easily, remembering the layout from earlier that day. Hana Song is leaned against the wall outside Mondatta’s office talking quickly with Detective Dos Santos.

“Captain!” Lucio calls, catching sight of him. “They can’t really just take the case, can they?”

“Not on my watch,” Jack growls, heading right for the door.

“They, uh, told us we couldn’t go in there…” Hana says.

“Did they?” Jack shoves the door open.

“HEY!” a voice somewhere near the floor yells, “you’re going to contaminate my scene!”

But Jack doesn’t hear her. Jack doesn’t hear anything. 

He blinks. There’s a ghost standing in his crime scene.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure when I'll be able to update, but the idea was too fun to resist <3 Thanks for reading!


End file.
